


(body) snatching rest in LA

by tripletmoons



Series: invasion of the body snatchers [2]
Category: DCU (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Tattoos, roy is navajo! fight me!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-17 04:27:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14825231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tripletmoons/pseuds/tripletmoons
Summary: Roy spends five months in LA trying to sort out his garbage fire life.





	1. tattoos

**Author's Note:**

> I want to get started on the next legit chapter of Roy's adventure, but this is what I came up with instead. Consider this an interlude - a filler - garbage fire drabbles for a garbage fire boy.

“And how about you, do you have anything you’d like to share tonight?”

Roy looks up from his coffee and meets the chairperson’s gaze. The look says _you haven’t spoken once in the last three meetings_ and _are you ok._ Which: no.

He looks back down at his coffee and tells it: “Yeah, yeah I’ll share.”

“Excellent, well how about you introduce yourself.”

“Hey, I’m Roy and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hello, Roy.” Choruses the AA sharing circle in near perfect unison. (It’s this sorta shit that makes AA feel like a cult sometimes.)

Roy swirls the swill masquerading as coffee round n’ round in his cup. “I - I just moved to L.A. about a month ago following a pretty major surgery.” Eyes drift to his arm. His lopped-off limb aches; his bicep seizes: an unsuppressed tell. “My body hasn’t been the same since then. It just  _bothers me_.”

“Bothers you how, Roy?” The chairperson prompts gently.

Roy forces himself to look up. He knows how this works; if he doesn’t talk about it, it’ll poison him arsenic style (slow and steady). It’s just hard to talk about bodysnatching when you can only obliquely allude to snatching a body. It’s also not something he wants to think too much about in general, which is how he knows he needs to talk about it.

“Dysphoria, I guess.” He shrugs. (HA  _guess!_  He wiki'd his symptoms so hard. It's no guess.) “After the incident and the surgery, whenever I look at myself my skin crawls. It’s like this body isn’t my own ( _because it literally isn’t_ ). To some extent working on my new house keeps my mind off it but like I still can’t look at myself in the mirror and sometimes I just get so nauseous.” 

“Thank you for sharing that, Roy.” The chairperson says, a vision of sympathy (very cult leader). “Does anyone have any advice?”

A girl with spiderbites and pink hair tentatively raises her hand. She’s easily the most memorable person in AA and fucking owns it: voted baddest bitch three AA meetings running (by Roy). Her hesitation is atypical.

The chairperson nods. “Okay, Marissa, what’ve you got for us?”

“After I – after I was sexually assaulted I also became dysphoric.” Her lip trembles and them firms, something steely in her eyes. Roy aches for her. (His right arm just aches.) 

“I _hated_ my body and so I drank because when I was drunk I felt fucking _grand_. When I sobered up the dysphoria was still there, because of course drinking didn’t actually fix _shit_. I dyed my hair. I pierced _everything_. I got tattoos. For me, that was the best way to reclaim myself – to own myself again. Now, when I look at myself I can see things I like, things I chose. Body Mod might not be your thing, Roy, but maybe fashion? Makeup? Beefing up through exercise? Anything that increases your body positivity. It’s not a perfect system – there’s never going to _be_ a perfect system – but it’s helpful.”

“Ink huh.” He says, eyeing the jade serpent twining around her arm.

 She flexes, smiling wanly; the snake seems to slither.

A lot of Roy’s tattoos – on his other ( _old?)_ body – were things he just woke up with, the results of drunken decision making. But he likes - _liked_ \- them well enough. Maybe here he can choose designs more purposefully. He doesn’t hate the idea.

“That’s a good idea.” He says. “Thank you.”

Marissa’s smile amps into a grin. “Sometimes, when I feel really gross, I stand in front of the mirror and just focus on the things I like about myself. I look at my ink, my piercings, my hair and I appreciate the hell out of them. That’s step number two in the Marissa Method.”

 The chairperson claps her hands. “Thank you for sharing, Roy and Marissa.”

They move on.

\-->

In between fixing the warehouse up and hacking assholes for money to fix the warehouse up; Roy has been slowly customizing his prosthesis, changing out the plating and internalizing the power sources, transitioning the limb from bulky black-red to streamlined silver. Three weeks after acquiring it, it’s something he doesn’t mind looking at. It’s like building a particularly impressive Roybot, like hitting a target spot on, like walking past a bar without being tempted. Looking at the work he’s done makes him feel good.

It’s a badass cyborg arm. _His_ badass cyborg arm.

He closes up the last panel and carries it over to the mirror. 

He looks at himself.

He lists what he hates: the prepubescent meat bag body, the short stature, the unfamiliar shape of his jaw, the scars – not _his_ scars, the nub of his amputation site. Bile rises sharp and acidic in his throat. He blinks to clear his sight. He looks away.  

The prosthetic locks on with two codes, sealing over his arm and connecting to his nervous system with a jolt. He forces himself to look again, honing his focus onto the things about his current self – _his body_ – that he likes: his _sick_ two-toned eyes, his red hair, his new L.A. boy freckles. 

He blocks out everything else (Archer's focus) and looks at his right arm, tracing the robot limb with his eyes, wholly appreciative. He drags his gaze up, just a little.

With the amputation site covered it's mostly ok, but it could be better. His bicep is too small and not his and - he remembers the faded ink of his father's legs, transposes it. Just imagines and appreciates.

He’s smiling, just a little.

(The Marissa Method, huh.)

\-- >

The thing is, Roy’s not _Diné_ by blood.

The language of his earliest memories is still _Diné bizaad_ , his father’s tongue, all the same. 

He remembers counting out breaths as he pulls an arrow back: _ł_ _áá'íí, naaki_. He remembers Brave Bow relaying tales of _Naayééʼ Neizghání_ over a fire pit. He remembers laying on the grass and listening to music, the beat of drums thrumming his bones.

 _Diné_ is the language of his father. The language of his heart.

(Oliver _fucking_ Queen didn’t teach him to read. Oliver _fuck-him_ Queen didn’t kiss his forehead and tuck him into bed with songs. Oliver _get-fucked_ Queen didn’t put a bow in his hands.)

In his world, he visits – _visited_ \- his paternal clan several times a year; he traveled to Indigenous Music Bash’s and festivals. He donated thousands of dollars to his family. He never goddamn forgot. In this world, O.G. Roy went back _twice_ and then _nothing._

(O.G. Roy’s adherence to Navajo cultural practices steadily vanished over time. When Roy speaks _Diné bizaad_  to himself, it feels like he’s retraining his tongue. This body remembers how to fight and shoot and _move_ , but not how to speak his first fucking language.)

The idea of going back now, when no one there has seen this body – this world’s Roy – in years is daunting. He prob won't even see anyone he knows, but still: daunting. 

It’s also something he has to do. 

In his world, he woke up hungover and dripping poison green art done by faceless artists in parlors with unknown names. 

In this world -  _his new world (?)_ , his arm is going to be inked by a Navajo artist or not at all.


	2. tattoos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy gets inked! (And not much else happens...)

He can’t bring himself to get closer to Brave Bow’s house (the house that isn't Brave Bow's anymore). 

He stands by his pickup and watches the place, looking more _creepy-white-boy-stalker_ than _kid-coming-home_.

It’s like looking at a photo taken straight from his earliest years: a house dusted with red dirt, water damaged to all hell, almost falling apart and in constant repair. A real shithole but still the best place he ever lived. He kinda wants to put down a sign to mark this place as a landmark: _Home of Brave Bow, all of the good parts of Roy Harper were born here._

Out back, Archery targets show signs of recent use. None of the strikes are bull’s-eyes, which is what convinces Roy that no one Brave Bow taught is living here. No one worth reminiscing with.

(Brave Bow never missed. Queen wasn’t the one that taught Roy to shoot straight.)

After another minute he gets in his car (not stolen, but purchased with a bundle of stolen cash) and drives away.

\-->

At first glance, Dire Straits Tattoos doesn’t look like much.

It’s a small parlor pancaked between a pizza joint and a nail salon in a New Mexico strip mall. On his drive here, he saw dozens of parlors just like it: damaged plaster, grimy plastic name sign, massive neon red _Tattoo_ eating up most of the window. 

It’s only when he gets close enough to see the artwork through the window that his heart picks up, thrumming to the beat of _this is the place, this is the place, this is the place._

He pushes the door open and breaths in the smell of ink and antiseptic. It itches the blackout drunk blackhole part of his mind. 

The parlor is small with two tables, one chair, a reception desk, and several fans cranked up to fight the New Mexico heat. Every inch of the wall space is plastered with images, inked and sketched and photographed. 

A wolf eats the moon. A _ma’sani_ (maternal grandmother) plays drums shaped like bleeding hearts. A horse beats across a stomach-shaped valley. Geometric weaves wrap up limbs.  _Yee naaldlooshii_ emerges from shadows. Birds fly through dotted, dusty stars.

Roy loves it.

He’s so enraptured that, even with his training, he almost misses the flint-eyed woman pushing open the _Employees Only_ door until she speaks. “Can I help you?”

“Uh yeah, I’m here to get a tattoo?”

“That I guessed." She pops a hip out, leaning against the nearest tattoo table and crossing her wirey arms, stretching faded tattoos. She’s older than his first glance belayed, long braids threaded with grey; face faintly lined with age. Still, she seems more likely to punch someone than squeeze their cheeks. "Do you have any idea of what you want?”

Roy reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, passing it over. He’s no artist but he is an archer and an engineer. He can draw a schematic of a bow just fine. “I want a tattoo incorporating that bow and arrow set with traditional weave -.”

“I won’t do traditional Navajo ink for a non-native.”

“Ah, I’m of the  _Áshįįhí_  through my father. Adopted.”

She pauses, looking him over critically. “You’re _Diné_?”

“Yeah.” He pauses and then figures why the hell not. “My father was Brave Bow-.”

“ _Roy Harper?”_

Roy jolts, left hand going to the utility belt tucked under his shirt before he can stop himself. “Yes. How did you know?”

“When one of the only white boys on the Rez wins a Navajo archery competition, it’s news. Plus,” her eyes soften, “I remember your father. He played the drum ev-.”

“Every Saturday.” He murmurs.

“Yes...” She clears her throat, holds out her hand. “I'm of  _Tódichʼíinii_ and  _Tsénahabiłnii._ Name's Johona." 

Roy shakes; feels her register his callouses. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"You too." She squints, eyes roving his face. "You look good, kid. Young.”

“Yeah, I never really grew out of my baby face.” 

“I’ll say… You look _fifteen_.”

“Ha, yeah, I've heard that before.” Roy says, shrugging to hide a wince.

Puberty needs to just hit Roy - him -  _fast_. He needs to not be jailbait pronto. Shit's getting embarrassing. Hell, on the upside, at least he can't get into bars, even if he wanted too. (Which he doesn't - shouldn't - _won't_.)

“Hm, well.” She unfolds his schematic, peering at it. “His bow." Her hand twitches, a phantom grip as if her were re-registering his archer's callouses. "Yeah, I’ll do it.”

Roy grabs his amputated arm, jutting his chin at it. "Can you ink over scar tissue, on this." 

It's the first time she's directed any real attention to his missing limb and he likes the way she looks at it. No pity, just the focused attention of an artist. 

(Yeah, _this is the place_.) 

"Do you mind if I touch?" She asks, coming closer. 

Roy kinda minds but he nods anyhow. Her hands are clinical, exploring the stump with light, unobtrusive touches. No shiver goes up his spine; his skin doesn't crawl. He doesn't watch her touch it -  _him_ \- but it doesn't feel bad. 

"How high do you want the ink to go?" 

"Up to the middle of my bicep. I don't want a full sleeve or anything; I just want enough to show a bit over top of my prosthetic." He says, then bites down. ( _Offering information out of Nerves, Roy, how unprofessional._ )

"Well, with the Bow and the weave and some arrows, hm." She lets go, moving over to the reception desk with his schematic in hand.  "I can draw you something up today but it will take a while." 

Roy glances at his phone: _5:47_. "I can come in tomorrow?" 

"Yeah, yeah that'll work. Now if you give me your phone number I can call you when I have an opening." 

Roy doesn't hesitate to relay his burn number. In a week, it won't exist anymore. 

"I'll call you." She says.

\-->

Roy finds a motel for the night. Like the tattoo parlor, walking into his motel room steals his breath. Unlike the tattoo parlor, this has more to due with the musty moldy air than the artwork on the walls. (Roy doesn't find mass produced eighties flower prints all that evocative, sue him. Also who the fuck thought granny flowers were a good idea for a motel in the _goddamn desert -._ )

Roy cracks open the sticky window as far as he can, letting the cool New Mexican night roll in and over his grimy skin. If Jason were here he'd have lit up a cigarette and leaned into the open air and-. Jason isn't here. Even if Roy were in his world - his old world - Jason wouldn't be there and neither would anyone else. All things considered, he didn't leave much behind.

He tosses his duffel onto the bed and unzips it, retrieving his gallon-ziplock full of toiletries. He leaves the bathroom door open to keep the air moving and turns on the shower in a burst of heat, pipes creaking _._ He places his contact container on the lip of the sink and washes his hands. (It only took one eye-infection for him to never again skip that step.) Two  _plucks_ later and his brown colored contacts sink into the solution. 

He steps into the shower.

Back in the day (in his world - the other world- whatever) he favored long, thoughtful showers. He favored jerking off in the showers. He  _greatly_ favored mixing the two. Now he showers quick, wiping sweat from his body in broad, detached strokes. His hair is lathered and washed in record time. He doesn't look at himself. He does  _not_  touch his dick. 

He pauses in front of the steamy mirror, eyeing his blobby blurry outline. 

He smears the steam off of his eyes, the bridge of his nose, his scalp, his shoulders. 

His wet hair is a deep, dark red, the color of dried blood or rust or, more romantically, a fucking sunset. It isn't as long as he'd like it, just edging past the tops of his ears, but he likes it. His eyes, his blue-green bichrome eyes, are fucking awesome. They're  _arresting._ Winking turns his gaze into a optical illusion. His freckles are charming even if they don't add maturity to his face (when has anyone ever called him mature, anyway). He doesn't look like the kid in the icebox, like the twin of his clone, anymore. He doesn't look like himself either, but-. He likes his hair and his eyes and his freckles. 

Maybe after tomorrow he'll be able to wipe another swipe through the steam.

(The Marissa Method.)

\-->

Roy lays on the tattoo table while Johona preps the ink off to the side, stretching his arm out and adjusting his thin-strap tank top. Johana shoots him a look over her shoulder.

Roy knows he looks nervous. Hell, he always looks kinda nervy; he constantly fiddles with things. But he's not nervous. He's _excited_. 

For once, he can't stop looking at the half-lopped-off arm. The outline she transferred to the- his arm is intricate and stunning: a bow and quiver blending into diamonds and triangles that sometimes fold together into fletched arrows and birds mid-flight. Roy can almost hear the sound of an arrow _thwacking_ into a bullseye.He remembers hands folding over his, wizened and solid and sun-dark. "Breath, Roy. Remember:  _ł_ _áá'íí, naaki."_

 _"_ Are you sure you want to do this all today, Roy." Johona asks, wheeling over the ink cart, colors in red and grey and black and tan and blue. "Most people take two or three sessions for ink like this. Especially for a first tattoo of this size or," she gazes at him with a gimlet eye," their first tattoo in general."

"So long as it doesn't have an ill-effect on the artwork, one session works best for me." Roy says, settling back to look at the ceiling.

Again, Johana grips his stump and Roy doesn't even fucking twitch ( _progress_!). The ink-gun fires up, buzzing. Roy forces himself to relax at the first pinch, settling into the pain. Breathing:  _ł_ _áá'íí, naaki, _ł_ _áá'íí, naaki.__

Roy doesn't remember getting his old- other tattoos. But free of the haze of alcohol, it's not bad. 

He imagines it unfolding on his arm and actually  _it's good_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some translations:  
> Áshįįhí: Saltwater Clan  
> Tsénahabiłnii: Sleeping Rock People  
> Tódichʼíinii: Bitterwater Clan
> 
> As far as I could work out, via research, the introduction goes: maternal clan then paternal clan. Roy, of course, only has his adopted father's clan, the Saltwater Clan.
> 
> If anyone has feedback on what I've written I will take it gladly!


	3. renovations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy is alive and fixing up something to live in.

He wakes up, face planted on hardwood, and groans. Mid-morning light jackhammers into his eyes, blurring the world. Next to him, his phone wails _ain’t no mountain high enough-._ He sweeps out with his arm, dislodging paper and metal detritus. His phone skitters to the floor.

He follows it down, slumping against the cool concrete, and reaches out, clumsily scooping it up with his good arm (the flesh and blood one, the one that doesn’t _hurt)._

“Hello.” He rasps, jaw creaking, and forces his aching body into a ghastly approximation of a slump, cradling his aching neck with his aching metal hand ( _falling asleep in his prosthetic sucks, phantom aches suck, mornings suck…_ ).

“Hello? Roy Gray?”

“Uh.” Roy’s brain sluggishly boots up. _Roy Gray: that’s you!_ “That’s me.”

“ _Hi!_ This is Anne MacIntosh from Home Depot! I’m calling to let you know that your order is in and ready for pick up whenever you’re ready.”

“That’s great, uh-.” Roy pulls away from his phone, squinting at the time: _12:44_. “Can I come in today around four?”

“You sure can! Would you like to book a movers truck to help haul your order?” 

“No, I’ve got it. Thank you though.”

“You’re welcome Mr. Gray. We’ll see you later today!” She chirps and the line deadens.

Roy drops his phone carelessly into his pocket and hauls himself unsteadily to his feet, body creaking and cracking like an old haunted building ( _Get it, he’s the ghost!_ ).

Like he’s standing in the epicenter of an explosion, his workshop expands messily around him. Against the walls, door-less cabinets yawn open, spilling out tools and schematics. Near him, the movable tabletops are already messy, ink marked and scuffed. In the space between, half finished projects loom: the skeleton of a motorcycle, self-made lights, a rack scattered with tech-arrows. 

Tellingly, his workshop is the most finished space in the Warehouse. (It’s the most lived in.)

He scoops up the scattered papers on the floor, designs for a new bow, and dumps them on the nearest table. Deftly, he unlocks his prosthetic and places it next to the schematics. His stump aches, nerve endings crying out, and he presses a hand to it, focusing on the ink beneath his fingers as he massages good-feelings into his skin. ( _His skin only crawls a little._ )

God. He needs to do an overhaul of his robo-arm’s inner circuitry and connective port. (But that requires more money than he can safely hack and reroute, requires some things to be stolen, requires Arsenal to-.) 

God. He rubs his hand down his face and scowls at the _grease._ In his body – his old body – he could not shower for a couple of days before he got this nasty but now he’s _pubescent._

He sniffs himself and _yeah._ 911 it’s time to shower. 

\-->

Home Depot is like an alternate dimension (trust him, he would fucking well know). It’s fluorescently lit, way too fucking orange, and somehow projects dad vibes. The aisles seem endless and endlessly useful. Roy has been here five times, has been through all of them, and keeps finding more. Just today he discovered the doorknob aisle. 

He’s admiring a crystal knob ( _ha_ ) when his name booms over the intercom. “Roy Gray to the cabinetry aisle. Roy Gray to the cabinetry aisle. Your pickup is ready.” 

Roy regretfully puts the doorknob down and hauls ass to the other side of the store where a large, orange banner proclaims: _Kitchen._  

“Roy?” The man at the desk asks dully, looking more than a little dead inside.

Roy nods; pulls out his wallet. “That’s me.”

“I’ll need to see your ID.” Roy lays it on the table. The man gives it a cursory glance, completely fails to notice all the signs of a fake (it’s a shitty forgery), and hands it back. “Your total is three thousand and fifty seven dollars.”

Roy hands over an envelope packed with cash. The possibly-zombified cashier doesn’t even blink as he pages through the bills and counts up the exact change. (Fuck, Roy loves home depot.) “Your order is packaged up out back.” The cashier does a drum solo on the counter, gesturing Roy to follow him the loading/unloading dock.

“I hope you brought a big truck with you.”

Roy raises a quizzical eyebrow. “I brought _a_ truck.”

The man winces, the most facial animation Roy has seen from him so far, and points at a dolly overflowing with plastic wrapped wood.

Roy groans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very casual kinda chapter. Hope you enjoyed, even if not a lotta ground work is being laid here.


	4. renovations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy builds things!

Roy is stepping out of his pickup when Marissa purrs into the parking lot on a  _sick_ custom Yamaha YZF-R1 LE motorcycle: a hotrod pink paintjob with Liza Frank stickers, visible engine work, and light aftermarket wheels.

 _A_   _sick as fuck custom job._

She deadens the engine and slides off, removing her helmet to reveal pink-halo hair. Edging a look at him, shoulders tense, she smiles. (Roy recalls the way she moves her chair back before every meeting, the wideness of her personal space bubble.) He avoids taking a knee to get a closer look at the Yamaha and steps back instead.

“I  _love_ your ride.” He gushes, making  _gimme_  hands at it. “Did you do the custom work yourself?”

“Yup.” Marissa nods; seems to consider something. “I work at an auto-body garage, actually. I’m a mechanic. 

Roy figures he knows what she was considering:  _to share or not to share_.

His first instinct, the one shaped from (Oliver  _fucking_ Queen supplied) vigilante clay, screams:  _no._ But he’s been working to dismantle that (to a reasonable extent) since he met Waylon, since his first AA meeting, since he decided to get better. The ink on his arm, still only just scabbing over, was borne of her advice. He’s looked at his arm in the mirror a lot in the past four days. (The Miraculous Marissa Method.)

“I’m an inventor myself, an engineer.” He offers, heading up to the community center.

Marissa falls into step beside him. “What do you work on?”

“Whatever I feel like, mostly. Lately I’ve been occupied with a lot of renovation work on my house since I just moved here: plumbing, wiring, etcetera. Outside of that, I’ve been working with my computer.”

“Hardware or software?”

“On the computer?” Roy holds the door open wide and allows her to pass him. “Both.”

“Huh, you ever do vehicles?”

“Yeah, bikes and cars and once a plane.” ( _Cough: spaceship.)_

“A plane!” She shoots him a dubious look, stud glinting as her eyebrow reaches her hairline. “Where the fuck did you work on a plane?”

“ _Hm_.” Roy wiggles his eyebrows. “That’s classified.”

Marissa snorts. “Ok, Mr. Secret Agent Boy.”

“That’s Mr. Secret Agent Man to you.”

She looks Roy over, catalogs him: baby-faced, lanky-framed, amputee. An actual twenty-six year old who’s actually ( _biologically_ ) fifteen. ( _Fuck, am I forty-one?)_  “Mr. Secret Agent Man.” She corrects.

He grins at her, tilting the brim of his hat like an English gentleman. (Somewhere, Alfred just sneezed)

They walk into the meeting room and past the circle of almost-full chairs to the shitty coffee machine. All it makes is swill, but if Roy were a vehicle, he’d hardly be custom Yamaha YZF-R1. He takes shitty swill _-ly_  fuel just fine.

He watches Marissa collect a styrofoam cup and pour. “By the way: thank you for your advise. The mirror idea and the tattoo idea.”

“You’re welcome.” She passes the coffee vessel, which is almost empty. (People in AA do not have standards for drinks. Or, rather, they do not have strict standards for drinks that extend beyond:  _Alcohol = Bad Idea_ ) “I’m always happy to convert someone to body art.”

“Consider me converted.” Roy says and pours the dregs. 

She holds out her Styrofoam cup demonstratively and they clink cups like English gentlemen. (Somewhere, Alfred is now looking for allergy medication)

Behind them, the door to the meeting room swings closed as the chairperson steps in. Whistling, he walks to his seat and sits down with a clap. “I see everyone is here, yes. Well, lets get started!” 

Marissa gives him a parting nod and walks over to sit between two other women. Stone-faced, she gulps her coffee. Roy sits down and takes a tentative sip of his; his face contorts, bitterness sucker-punching his tongue.

( _Marissa_ : voted baddest bitch five AA meetings running (by Roy))

\-->

As of this week, the Warehouse is the official property of Ronald Johnson: a local California man with an impressive ( _falsified_ ) purchasing history including property renovation books and four run-down LA buildings. 

When Roy isn’t working on his robo-arm or hacking assholes for profit and pleasure on his piecemeal computer, the Warehouse gets a facelift. No, it gets  _facial_   _reconstructive surgery._

In the past couple weeks he’s done a lot. (All of it before he even bought the place because  _falsifying identities_  and  _acquiring_   _money._ )

He got himself a fucking jackhammer and tore up space for pipes. He laid down the pipes ( _the water runs, bitches_ ). He dug into the walls and laid down the electric ( _the overhead construction light works, bitches_ ). He put up wood frames along the left wall to block out two bedrooms and a bathroom ( _plastering is a bitch, bitches_ ).

Thankfully, he has experience this time around. Last time around he did not and “ _it_   _shows Roy, how the fuck did you even-”._ When he set up the Warehouse in his old –past life, he compiled a handy-dandy mental list titled:  _What I wish I added to the Warehouse._

This list includes:

  * a garbage disposal for the kitchen sink
  * a second bedroom (Roy likes –liked ( _?_ ) -  _would like_  to share his bed under the right conditions but those conditions do not include: while injured, while angry, while  _just friends_.)
  * a bathtub (he will work his way back up to bubble baths,  _he will)_
  * a hammock in the rafters
  * more workshop space
  * a lighting system that makes sense (his light switches were in weird places and turned on weird things)



He tightens his grip around the netting in his hands, cracking it like a whip. Today’s goal:  _the hammock_.

\-->

His half-assembled kingdom stretches out bellow him, a sprawl of tools and sawdust and wood frames (some plastered, some not). 

For all that he recognizes the place - the dimensions of the space, the strong steel rafters, the lattice brickwork, the stained windows - it is not a ghost from his memories, not a mirror reflecting the past. He carefully, purposely, is laying out the land to be something new. 

He doesn't want to live in a time capsule (dimension capsule? dream capsule?  _whatever_ ). He doesn't want to live in a world lost to him.

So, he buys different woods and lays out different spaces. He puts the kitchen and the bathroom and the bedrooms somewhere else. He plans to color the walls differently, to buy different countertops. Even as he tries to make his body more familiar, he makes the Warehouse more distant.

He tightens his thighs around a steel beam and knots rope around steel and builds something new.

\--> 

Roy doesn’t slide out of sleep like an otter out of water. He doesn’t blink into being, eyes open wide, ready for the day.

He wakes up tied in knots, sheets strangling his legs and compressing his chest. He wakes up and reaches for a gun only to miss ( _his arm is gone - it's gone!)_. He wakes up with stars spinning behind his eyes, gasping  _JasonKor'i?_

He wakes up and rolls out of bed, dragging covers across the concrete as he staggers to his workbench. 

A shaking hand turns the light on, illuminating papers and metal pieces. 

Roy wakes up and gets to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I moved this chapter around (jumped it forward in the lineup) to put more focus on Roy's sleep cycle, or lack thereof.

**Author's Note:**

> Canonically Roy is adopted into the Navajo (Diné) by Brave Bow. The comics don't dwell on his personal connection to the Navajo and their culture, but I sure as shit am. However, I am not a Native American and therefor cannot with any accuracy speak about Native experiences. If anyone reading this can, I welcome feedback!


End file.
